TY - JOUR

T1 - Tilt-to-length coupling in the grace follow-on laser ranging interferometer

AU - Wegener, Henry

AU - Müller, Vitali

AU - Heinzel, Gerhard

AU - Misfeldt, Malte

N1 - Funding information: Parts of this work have been financially supported by the Bundesmi-nisterium für Bildung und Forschung, project number 03F0654B. Moreover, parts of this work have been supported by funding from the Sonderforschungsbereich 1128 “Relativistic Geodesy and Gravimetry with Quantum Sensors (geo-Q)” by the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) for support within the LEGACY framework on low-frequency gravitational wave astronomy (M.IF.A.-QOP18098). The authors would like to thank the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On Science Data System (SDS) for providing Level-1 instrument data. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the German Space Operations Center (DLR, German Aerospace Center– GSOC) for helpful discussions about GRACE Follow-On attitude control.

PY - 2020/7/27

Y1 - 2020/7/27

N2 - The Laser Ranging Interferometer onboard the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On satellites is the first laser interferometer in space measuring satellite-to-satellite distance variations. One of its main noise sources at low frequencies is the so-called tilt-to-length coupling, caused by satellite pointing variations. This error is estimated by fitting a linear coupling model, making use of the so-called center-of-mass calibration maneuvers. These maneuvers are performed regularly for the original purpose of center-of-mass determination. Here, the results of the tilt-to-length estimations for the Laser Ranging Interferometer are presented in terms of coupling factors, which are all within 200 μm ⋅ rad−1 and thus meet the requirements. From these parameters, estimations of nadir and cross-track components of the spacecraft center-of-mass positions with respect to the interferometer reference point are derived, providing an additional method to track center-of-mass movement over time.

AB - The Laser Ranging Interferometer onboard the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On satellites is the first laser interferometer in space measuring satellite-to-satellite distance variations. One of its main noise sources at low frequencies is the so-called tilt-to-length coupling, caused by satellite pointing variations. This error is estimated by fitting a linear coupling model, making use of the so-called center-of-mass calibration maneuvers. These maneuvers are performed regularly for the original purpose of center-of-mass determination. Here, the results of the tilt-to-length estimations for the Laser Ranging Interferometer are presented in terms of coupling factors, which are all within 200 μm ⋅ rad−1 and thus meet the requirements. From these parameters, estimations of nadir and cross-track components of the spacecraft center-of-mass positions with respect to the interferometer reference point are derived, providing an additional method to track center-of-mass movement over time.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088467293&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.2514/1.A34790

DO - 10.2514/1.A34790

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85088467293

VL - 57

SP - 1362

EP - 1372

JO - Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

JF - Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

SN - 0022-4650

IS - 6

ER -